Most people today have played UK style bingo even if they have never traveled to the UK.  That’s because the popular UK version of the game is also very popular at the online bingo sites where it is called 90 ball bingo.  Online, this version has become even more popular than the traditional American version played with 75 balls and a 5 x 5 grid.  One of the best things about UK bingo is that there are three winners per game instead of only one like there is in American games.

UK bingo, or 90 ball bingo, uses a 3 x 9 grid.  Each row has five numbers with each ticket having a total of 15 – there isn’t a free space with UK bingo.  This formation allows for different patterns than the 75 ball American variation as well as allowing the three ways to win – single line, two lines and full house.

To win the one line in UK bingo, you must get all five numbers in the first row.  To win two lines, you would need all the numbers in both the first and the second row.  Full house is when you get all the number in all three rows, similar to the coverall style game in American bingo.

In the bingo hall, when you’ve met any of the winning number conditions, you would shout out “house” whereas in America you would holler “bingo”.  This is where the term “housie” comes from which is what bingo is often called in Australia and parts of the UK still.

Naturally, the largest prize goes to the player who gets full house with the other two winners getting progressively less.  With online bingo, usually there is a set amount awarded which you are aware of before playing such as ￡50 for single line, ￡100 for two lines and ￡250 for the full house winner.

Bingo tournaments can be a fun and different way to enjoy the bingo games we all love.  They can be held offline in landbased bingo halls or in the various online bingo sites available.  Whether online or off, bingo tournaments are not only fun to participate in, there is the potential to win a very nice amount of cash.   There are some differences between the offline and online bingo tournaments and we will talk about that today.

With most offline bingo tournaments, the players will need to pay a flat fee to enter and each player will have an equal number of cards.  The jackpot will be a percentage of all the entry fees, usually the majority, with the bingo hall getting the remainder.  Tournaments usually attract a large number of players so the prize is larger than what you are able to win in a single game.  Often, tournaments will be held to benefit some sort of charity so that is an additional benefit as you not only have a chance at a hefty prize, you’ll also be helping to support a worthy cause.

While popular in recent years, you will not be able to find a landbased bingo tournament whenever you would want as they are not being held every day.  With online bingo tournaments, though, you can almost always find one or more being held whenever you are in the mood to play.

When you look for an online bingo tournament, be sure to read all the rules of the game because it will vary a lot more than with offline tournaments.  There are some sites that will host a tournament that works much the same as the offline tournaments, where you pay a fee and everyone has the same number of cards with the winner taking a large percentage of the entry fees for the jackpot.

Other tournaments may be different, however.  Bingo tournaments online can offer prizes such as a holiday trip or bingo points for a particular site.  Some online bingo tournaments will have limits as to the numbers of players while others are unlimited.  There are almost endless variations in prizes and rules for online bingo tournaments so it’s best to compare and read all the rules so you know what you are getting into.

#1 – Go For The Bonus

More than ever, online bingo sites are offering great bonuses for registering and for making deposits as they try to compete with all the new sites being launched.  While the bonus money shouldn’t be your only consideration, when all other things are equal you should choose the site that will give you the biggest bonus.  That will at least give you the ability to play more bingo and may even result in you’re being able to build your account faster.

#2 – Play for Entertainment, Not for Profit

Sure, we all love to win but you must remember that bingo is a gambling game so not everyone will win.  Instead you should look at online bingo as a fun evening’s entertainment and consider any wins as a lucky bonus.  If you play regularly, chances are that you will win at some point as statistics show that 96% of regular bingo players do win but you shouldn’t go into it with that expectation.

#3 – Stick to Your Budget

With any type of gambling, you should always have a budget in mind of what you can afford to spend.  Always look at this as money spent even if it’s sitting in your account.  You can never count on winning so make sure any deposit you make is something that you can live without.  This step shouldn’t be hard since online bingo is such a low cost form of gambling but it is something you must consider.

#4 – Make Friends

One of the best things about online bingo is the ability to chat with others and get to know people through the chat features.  Take advantage of this feature to make new friends.  Many people will go to the same bingo room on a regular basis just to interact with the friends they have made.  The chat rooms also offer extras such as chat games that can not only be fun to play but often get rewarded with free bingo tickets or points towards prizes.

There are a couple of ways to play pretty much as much online bingo as you want and never put up a dime of your own money.  You could even turn a profit if you play at the right sites.  Let’s take a look at how you could play for free and really stretch your entertainment dollars to the max.

To begin with, a growing number of online bingo sites are offering free bingo games.  Some online bingo sites have free bingo games only on certain days or within certain hours.  Others have free no deposit online bingo in specific rooms around the clock, whenever you get the urge to play a game.  All of these do still offer a cash prize, albeit smaller than a cash game would offer.  Still winning anything from one pound up is still cash that you wouldn’t have otherwise.  And these winnings are normally able to be cashed out without any further wagering requirements providing you accumulate the minimum cashout amount required by the site.

Another way to enjoy a whole lot of free bingo is to take advantage of the many bingo bonuses being given just to register at most sites.  This averages five to fifteen pounds per site.  That may not sound like much money but when you think about most online bingo tickets costing as little as a penny, that could be an awful lot of free bingo!  With bonuses, you may not always be able to cash out any winnings but even if you can’t, you can use your winnings to keep playing bingo for free.

Some online bingo sites will allow you to cash out your winnings from a bonus put set a wagering requirement where you have to wager that amount a certain number of times before being able to withdraw.  Again, if nothing else, this can give you many, many free online bingo games and in the end, may even give you a profit.

Some people play online bingo just to pass the time and socialize with all their online friends in the chat rooms.  There is nothing wrong with that, of course, and online bingo is probably one of the lowest cost forms of entertainment that there is these days.  However, some play bingo in order to profit as much as possible.  After all, bingo may not be the big money gambling that you may find inside casinos, but it still is a form of gambling.  The goal of any form of gambling is generally to win and make a profit.

With online bingo being so very random, is it possible to improve our chances of winning?  With the random number generators creating our bingo cards on the fly as we purchase them and the numbers being called totally at random, as well, online bingo is almost exclusively a game of chance.  However, there are a few things that may increase your chances of winning a prize.

One thing that you can do to improve your odds of winning a jackpot is to play early in the morning or late at night.  Fewer players will be around at that time so you have slightly higher odds of winning.  Of course, since many of the jackpots go by how many tickets are sold, these prizes will tend to be lower than at a crowded game.

Another thing that may help is to play frequently.  Since 96% of all online bingo players win a prize at some point, you have pretty good odds of winning something at some point.  If you only play on occasion, though, you aren’t given yourself much chance to win, are you?  Those who play online bingo every day or every other day will almost always win more often than those who only play here and there.

One great new feature that can help you win more often is the pre-buy tickets at many of the higher jackpot games.  By buying as many tickets as you are allowed or can afford, you give yourself slightly better odds.  Since you don’t have to be in the online bingo room to win, you could be in several big money games at once.  Can you imagine logging back in to find out you’ve won big jackpots at multiple online bingo sites?  Woo-hoo!

Online bingo portal, BingoHideout.co.uk, conducted a survey recently of over 2,000 people throughout the UK.  While that is not actually a large enough sampling to give completely accurate results, it does paint an interesting picture for the online gaming industry.  Some of the statistics may surprise you while others you might already have guessed:

One third of the men who gamble online say that they don’t tell their partners how much they are really spending.  Tsk, tsk, tsk!

42% of men admit to playing online bingo at least twice a week while a third say they play every day.  So much for online bingo being a ladies game!

53% of men said that they use the chat rooms on regular basis with one third saying they have made new friends that way.  Almost 1 in 12 said that they found a long lost friend or a new love interest in the chat rooms.

1 out of 6 men say that online bingo has improved their lives, citing things like increased confidence and better computer skills.  See, bingo is good for you!

Ben Thorns, the director of Bingo Hideout, said, “The popularity of online bingo among men has risen massively over the last couple of years and it is now starting to catch up with poker.  While bingo was once seen as attracting a largely female audience, the choice and low cost of games is attracting many more men with nearly 25% of players now male.”

With the rise in male bingo players, you can expect to see more sites either making their designs more gender neutral or even creating sites geared toward men more than women.  After all, not too many men want to admit that they enjoy spending time on a pink site with a big purse and shoes on it.  It’s just not that manly, is it?  A guy does have his pride, you know!

Online bingo has experienced phenomenal growth in recent years and shows no signs of slowing down.  At a time when land based bingo halls are suffering from diminishing membership and higher taxes, more and more people are turning to the online bingo websites.  Just what are the main reasons for this incredible growth?  What is so great about online bingo anyway?

Well, one thing that appeals to many people is that there is such a huge variety of games available online.  From several variations on bingo itself to instant win games, slots games and even video poker – most sites have several games on offer.  And if for some reason, you can’t find what you want at one site, it is a simple matter to switch to a different online bingo site to find something different.

Another thing that is attractive, of course, is the possibility of winning a prize or big cash jackpot.  With the promotions that change all the time at the online bingo sites, you have the chance to win almost anything these days.  Travel prizes like cruises and airfare have been very popular lately.  Cool electronics prizes like flat screen televisions, mp3 players and video game consoles have been seen.  Never forget the cash jackpots that are being won every day – the more popular that online bingo becomes, the higher the jackpots seem to go.

The biggest reason that online bingo is so much fun, though, is the community that has developed around the industry.  There are chat rooms right at each site where you can get to know the other players, make new friends and even play side games.  There are numerous online bingo blogs, like this one, where we can read about our favorite pastime.  There are also quite a few online discussion forums where you can chat with others about our love for all things bingo.

●    Bingo is so popular in Belgium that it received the second highest number of votes to be their national pastime.
●    The name ‘Bingo’ came about entirely by accident in 1929, when a player in Atlanta, Georgia shouted it out instead of ‘Beano’.
●    Carl Leffler, a mathematics professor, worked with Edwin Lowe to create 60,000 bingo cards with non repeating number groups. It is rumoured that this drove him insane
●    The National Bingo Game started in 1986. Around 500 clubs throughout the UK link together every day to generate huge prize jackpots. Total prize money won stands at over £725 million!
●    96% of bingo players have won at some point while playing
●    In 2003, the first bingo site on the internet was launched in the UK
●    One in five Scots plays regularly, compared with only one in 20 in the south of England.
●    There are 552,446,474,061,129,000,000,000,000 bingo card combinations!
●    The first known form of bingo originated in Italy, around 1530.
●    The form of bingo which we recognise today originated in the United States, where it was named ‘Beano’. Players would place beans on their numbers and shout ‘Beano’ when they marked off a line.
●    From its very beginnings, bingo was associated with charities and fundraising. This originated when a Catholic priest approached Edwin Lowe and asked him if he could use the game to raise funds for the church.
●    The average speed of a British bingo caller is 23 numbers per minute.
●    70% of players are female.
●    The average age of players is 45
●    In New Zealand and Australia, bingo is called ‘housie’.
●    There are more than 3 million regular bingo players in UK.
●    The first purpose built bingo hall in the UK was Castle Bingo in Canton, Cardiff.
●    30% of bingo players are under the age of 35.
●    Surveys have revealed that more than two in three people go to bingo for social rather than financial reasons.